The Night Jam at the 2012 Burton US Open

Last night, March 11, Stratton hosted the 2012 night jam at the 30th annual Burton US Open. The crowd was massive, the course was amazing, and the lasers were heating things up. While it was a rail jam, you really couldn’t call it a rail jam. There were jumps, quarterpipes, hips, rails, pretty much a whole snowboard park was condensed into one massive feature. It was pretty sick.

The riders waiting to drop in to hit the spectacle.

Because of all the features, the judging was broken up into best overall rail, best overall air, best trick air, and best trick rail. For the rail action, the riders who were really looking good were Zak Hale and Ethan Deiss with their solid style and super proper trick selection. Also Dylan Dragotta was killing the ledge into the tranny, and Mark McMorris was doing cool stuff on the wall ride.

Zak Hale all squared up

For the air part of it dudes like Danny Davis, Jack Mitrani, and Kim Rune Hansen were blasting out of the quarterpipe. They were going seriously like twenty feet out. It was really cool to see riders like that in a rail jam because you normally don’t.

Danny Davis sending it on the quarterpip. I can't wait for the day he drops a full videopart. He's so sick.

There was a jump that went over the whole feature. It was maybe 80 feet to the knuckle, and 95 or something to the sweet spot, and dudes went off on it. Chas Guldemond did like every trick possible over that thing, and Ulrik Badertscher was cruising it too until he tried a double backside rodeo and it went terribly wrong. He fell but it seems like he will be ok.

When the night was all said and done the riders who walked away victorious were: